


Not as if he lost a limb

by galaxyostars



Series: The DMC Collection [5]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Blood and Injury, Uncle-Nephew Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 14:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19007917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyostars/pseuds/galaxyostars
Summary: With a frown touching his eyebrows, Dante picked up one of the other discarded demonic bolts and examined its point. It seemed stock standard, if a little thick-The frown deepened as he knocked the butt of Ebony against the top of the bolt. Its points sprung open, leaving four prongs for maximum damage.“Don’t tell me that’s in me?”Dante smirked. “You’d rather I lie to you?"





	Not as if he lost a limb

**Author's Note:**

> I need more quality time fics between Dante and Nero and if I have to write them myself, then so be it.

Typically, Dante did not go out on jobs with Nero. This was primarily because of  _safety_  reasons: they always got in each other’s way. Unless battling a large demon that required some limb removal, there was never enough room to manoeuvre around each other.  

Cut to today, where Dante did actually call Nero this time.  

Hordes of demons weren’t a problem for a well-versed devil hunter, but on this occasion, four large automatic cross-bow (maybe? Who knows at this point) wielding fiends from the underworld directly attacking a small family meant that vengeance was the theme of the day. He was well within his rights to call back up, if only to hammer the message in to the demons to  _not attack small children_. Nero was also very enthusiastic about delivering this message. Probably something to do with looking after a handful of small children himself. 

All was going well. The devil sword Dante and Red Queen sliced through their opponents like butcher knives against red meat. The whole affair was messy, the ground (and their shoes) stained black with demon blood.  

And then there was one.

If there was one thing Dante was notoriously terrible at, it was coordinating his attacks with his allies. Lady was easy to work with—she hung back in the battle, always with long-range missiles and guns and never getting up close and personal. Trish worked around Dante, having long given up on trying to attack simultaneously with him. And Vergil? Well, while they were often on the same wave-link, they were more likely to fight each other than they were to fight side-by-side, so that was never really a problem. 

With Nero, however, the contrast to Dante was stark in its clarity. Nero had an anger that powered his attacks—he was always  _yelling_ , wielding his sword with brute strength rather than any obvious strategy or technique. Dante, however, often enjoyed these encounters since they gave him the opportunity to let loose a little. He could count the amount of times he felt truly, utterly angry in battle on his two hands. 

For anyone observing this battle, it would have been no surprise when the two combatants suddenly smashed into each other’s sides, providing the enemy with enough time and an opening to attack. A crossbow bolt was launched, which would have been deflected had Nero not used that exact moment to berate Dante for not watching where he was going.  

The bolt had such force behind it; it flew into Nero’s torso and successfully knocked him over to the ground. 

A wave of fury controlled Ebony and Ivory. Two shots into the demon’s eyes was all it took to end its miserable existence. As its corpse lay there, eye sockets smoking, Dante’s attention turned immediately back to Nero. 

Despite being impaled, stabbed, shot, and even having lost limbs before, he was not in great shape. His nephew was dragging himself into an upright position as Dante fell back to him. He tugged at the bolt but a pained groan evoked its immediate release. 

“Crap,” Nero cried, spitting blood to the ground beside him. 

Dante sighed, holding Nero still as he took over the gruesome task of the bolt's removal. The tug he gave it should have been enough to remove it—instead, the tug took Nero’s torso with it with a sickening scrape and a partial scream slipping through the tight lips of the bolt’s victim, so much so that Dante released it almost as if it were burning hot.  

“Leave it-!” 

“Alright! It’s alright!” Dante exclaimed, catching one of Nero’s arms and steadying him. “Stop. Just calm down.” 

“ _Don’t you tell me to calm down!”_  

With a frown touching his eyebrows, Dante picked up one of the other discarded demonic bolts and examined its point. It seemed stock standard, if a little thick- 

The frown deepened as he knocked the butt of Ebony against the top of the bolt. Its points sprung open, leaving four prongs for maximum damage. 

“Don’t tell me that’s  _in_  me?” 

Dante smirked. “You’d rather I lie to you? Aren’t you a little old to be needing false reassurance like that?” 

Nero snarled at him, but only coughed up more blood. 

“We have to remove it. You can’t heal with it stuck in your ribs like that.” 

“ _Thanks for the heads up, old man_ ,” Nero snapped. 

Dante rolled his eyes and gingerly pulling the remains of Nero’s shirt around the blade and peering at the wound. Blood was no longer  _flowing_  from his impalement, but nothing about that made him feel any better than he had before—it only meant that his body was quickly healing around it.  

Not an easy fix. 

“I gotta tell you,” he finally shrugged, blue eyes glancing back up to Nero’s face. “We’re going to have to make it worse before it gets better.” 

“Tell you what,” Nero huffed, avoiding any deep breathing. “Just knock me out.” 

“I can’t.” 

“ _What_ ? What are you _talking_  about? Are you whimping out on me or something?” 

“The bolt’s stuck in between your ribs and punctured your lung. When I pull it out, you’re going to have to trigger and heal it quickly—and you need to be conscious to do that.” 

No matter how Nero might have felt about it, the truth of the matter was that Dante would feel even worse. He knew Nero to be a capable kid (he’d proved it multiple times) but he would always feel guilty for getting him hurt, regardless of if it was truly his fault.  

This time, it would definitely be his fault. He was about to pull apart his ribs. 

See, this is why he would never have children of his own. Kids screaming in pain made his teeth grind and his eyes tear up. Though Nero couldn’t technically be called a ‘kid’ (he was twenty-six), Dante firmly believed he still fell under that category. Nero was his nephew, Vergil’s son, and therefore would be afforded the title of “kid” until the day he was nothing but wrinkles and falling over with a broken hip. Hell, even then. 

He didn’t listen to Nero’s angry retorts when he put his fingers in the hole of his shirt and splitting it apart, letting it fall away from his torso—in fact, his fury triggered another coughing fit, making Dante wince and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

His body was healing from the top down, his skin having already sealed around the bolt. The thing about blades was that the sharp edges made hard work for fast healing factors—hence they had the time to leisurely pull swords out from their own bodies and shrug that shit off. But bolts, bullets, and other nonsense? 

Look, the amount of times he’d had to go back to his shop and cut out bullets that his body had healed around was . . . not healthy.  

“Kyrie’s gonna kill me,” the older demon hunter breathed. 

“It’s not as if I lost a limb. _This_  time.” 

“You think she’ll let me off easy if you walk away with only a ripped shirt?” 

Nero huffed, lips twitching in amusement. “I think she’ll be more upset about my jeans being soaked-” 

His sentence slipped into a scream when Dante took the distraction to rip out the bolt, four prongs and all, leaving a sizable hole in Nero’s torso and a broken rib (which Dante then made quick work of, knocking it back into place while capturing Nero’s wrists in his other hand lest he get backhanded).  

Now they were both covered in not only demon blood, but  _Nero_  blood too. Kyrie would definitely kill him. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to tell Nero to trigger. In a flash of blue light, the kid’s second pair of blue arms had knocked him upside the head and thrown him ten feet sideways, the screaming having subsided and replaced with a heavy and pained panting. 

Dante sat up with a groan, his brain rattling in his skull. His hand rubbed at the fresh bruise on his chin as he glanced back to Nero, who was now upright with his attention solely at the closing hole in his torso. His healing capabilities had taken the fresh injury in its stride—by the time Dante had stood to join him, the wound was but a fingernail large. 

“No pain, no gain,” Dante joked, earning a glare from the demonized Nero that he shrugged off. “Take it from someone who knows: had we not dealt with it now, it would have been a  _bitch_  to pull out later.” 

“Whatever.” 

“Come on, _sport,”_ Dante smirked. “Let’s go get you a new shirt.”


End file.
